


Song for a winter's night

by adrenalin211



Category: Justified
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 14:53:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adrenalin211/pseuds/adrenalin211
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He smiles at her, the way her laughter seems a bit nervous.</p><p>“I sure do like that hat, Ava.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Song for a winter's night

**Author's Note:**

> This is for you, cybertoothtiger, in response to your prompt: "elf hat" for _Justified_. I'm not sure if you're a Boyd fan, but when I saw "elf hat" I just had to write Boyd for some reason. The prompt post for Christmas fic is [here!](http://adrenalin211.livejournal.com/7314.html#cutid1) Merry Christmas, J! xo Thanks, S, for the read through. Title is from the Gordon Lightfoot song of the same title.

He’s about ten or fifteen minutes late coming home, which puts him in an apologetic mood; he does appreciate punctuality. So when Ava says 6:30 he damn well better be sure he’s _there_ at 6:30.

“Ava?” he calls as he’s walking into the house, expecting to find her in the kitchen. “Excuse my tardiness, baby. I got myself all twisted in a nervous knot, wracking my brain over what to purchase for you in celebration of the birth of our savior. I was in town and then I –”

“Boyd?” he hears, coming from somewhere upstairs. “Is that you?”

“Ava?” he says, a bit confused. She’s never upstairs during the day ’less she’s putting away laundry or feeling ill. “What are you doin’ up there?”

“If you come on up here you’ll find out, don’t you think?”

And, given the circumstances surrounding his life and his most recent choices, his mind’s always makin’ the leap to the worst possible scenario before considering anything else, so, panicked and sweaty, he takes the steps two at a time until he makes it up the stairs, turns right down the narrow hallway, and freezes when he gets to the door of the bedroom.

There, Ava sits, legs crossed, completely naked with the exception of a green and red elf hat. She speaks before he has the opportunity to absorb the vision. And she is just that: a vision.

“There’s this scene in Pretty Woman,” she says, pausing. “You know that movie?” Boyd nods; to his recollection, there _is_ a movie by that title which he has seen, although he’s not sure, given the image before him, that he could testify to its plot with any authority. “Anyway, that’s one of my favorite movies, and there’s this scene where Julia Roberts is wearin’ nothin’ but a tie when Richard Gere gets home. And when he sees her in it and nothin’ else he says, ‘Nice _tie._ ’ and she just says, ‘I got it for you.’”

“I see.” Boyd says, his mouth very dry.

“And I saw this hat at the store today and I thought…. I’d see.”

“See what?”

“If it …works?”

Boyd clears his throat, unable to process what exactly she means. “Well if you tell me your intended outcome, I’ll tell you if it worked.”

“Well,” she says, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. “For you to like it. In a….sexy way?”

He smiles at her, the way her laughter seems a bit nervous.

“I sure do like that hat, Ava.”

“I got it for you,” she says, and now she’s _really_ laughing, in that way only Ava can laugh. She reaches to her head, takes off the hat, and chucks it at him. “Well you wear it then,” she says, feigning insult.

The hat hits his chest and falls to the floor. Boyd blinks for the first time since he walked up those stairs, managin’ to take his eyes off her for a second to pick up the discarded elf hat and put it on his head.

(Don he now his gay apparel.)

“If you mean, am I aroused by your…ensemble, why yes, Ava. I believe it has had the desired effect. But I’m standin’ here right now, wearin’ this festive hat and you are in the _finest_ birthday suit I’ve ever laid eyes on, and all I can think about, besides gettin' in _my_ birthday suit, is that the good lord decided to give me a Christmas after all.”

Ava smiles, motioning for him to come closer.

“Don’t have to ask me twice,” he says, coming up to kiss her.

++++++++++++++++++++

When it’s over, she seems satisfied by the tactic she borrowed from that movie (of which he’s forgotten the title) and its applicability to any and _all_ sole items of clothing she’d ever like to wear for him.

He assures her of this truth. That it will always, in her beautiful words, _work_.

“Can I tell you somethin’?” she asks after a minute.

“You know you can.” He runs a hand through her hair.

“First time we made love I was worried you was gonna shout ‘fire in the hole’ when you came,” she says, matter-of-factly, and he can tell without lookin’ at her that she’s dead-serious. “Take the romance right out of it,” she continues, turning around to face him and biting her lip. “Even thought about how I’d respond if you did.”

He tries his best not to laugh.

“Not to worry, Ava,” he manages, placing a hand on her shoulder because he loves touching her almost as much as he loves sayin’ her name right now, each helping to convince him of the reality of this moment, like the Boyd Crowder equivalent of getting pinched during an implausible dream. “I reserve that expression for explosions of the fiery type.”

She nods, placing a kiss on his neck, her hand running up his chest as she does so. He tries to keep his body from shaking too much.

“Out of curiosity,” he says, a minute later, “What was the response you had prepared, should that moment have arisen?”

She purses her lips to the side in thought. “I’d better demonstrate,” she says. “Give you the full-effect, okay?”

He nods.

She slaps him, not hard, but not lightly either. Still, he can only smile.

“Before you said ‘made love’, Ava. That what we’re doin’?”

He raises an eyebrow and her expression stills. “Sounds less callous if you put it that way, don’t you think?”

“I do,” he agrees. “Feels more accurate, too,” he risks, holdin’ his breath in anticipation of her response.

She nods, answer to his prayers.

A revelation.


End file.
